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Housing policy a failure

Letter to the Editor | Sunday, November 9, 2008

We all know that the University would like to have as many students as possible live on campus as long as possible. The administration is building the new dorms to alleviate the housing overcrowding and offer attractive new rooms to students. Being stuffed into tiny rooms, though, is just one problem that students have with living on campus. Draconian rules – like parietals – and overzealous enforcement thereof are what drive undergraduates to look for other options for housing. Building new dorms is obviously not going to solve these problems. The first thing the University needs to do is relax its regulations. It should bring an end to parietals and the restriction on hard liquor immediately and hall staff should allow social gatherings to continue without the overbearing interference with which it now regulates them. Many students are tired of looking over their shoulders for RAs and rectors constantly.The second thing the University should do is build on-campus apartments where there would not be any rules or hall staff. In these apartments, students could live without the restrictions of ResLife rules and hall staff. At the same time, they would still be subject to police enforcement of laws, like other apartments. Unfortunately, with all the additional buildings being put up on campus, it may be too late for this option. If the University cared about ensuring the safety of students by keeping them on campus, it would change its policies drastically. From the stories I hear from alumni of the previous generation, I can understand why it was an attractive option to stay on campus all four years then. Instead, students are forced to flee the oppression of ResLife rules and the tyranny of prying hall staff.